quality, not much worn, and well-chosen for its purpose, but deprived
of its original colour by his trade. It showed to advantage the good
shape of his figure. A certain well-to-do air about the man suggested
that he was not poor for his degree. The natural query of an observer
would have been, Why should such a promising being as this have hidden
his prepossessing exterior by adopting that singular occupation?

After replying to the old man's greeting he showed no inclination to
continue in talk, although they still walked side by side, for the
elder traveller seemed to desire company. There were no sounds but
that of the booming wind upon the stretch of tawny herbage around
them, the crackling wheels, the tread of the men, and the footsteps
of the two shaggy ponies which drew the van. They were small, hardy
animals, of a breed between Galloway and Exmoor, and were known as
"heath-croppers" here.

Now, as they thus pursued their way, the reddleman occasionally left
his companion's side, and, stepping behind the van, looked into its
interior through a small window. The look was always anxious. He
would then return to the old man, who made another remark about
the state of the country and so on, to which the reddleman again
abstractedly replied, and then again they would lapse into silence.
The silence conveyed to neither any sense of awkwardness; in these
lonely places wayfarers, after a first greeting, frequently plod on
for miles without speech; contiguity amounts to a tacit conversation
where, otherwise than in cities, such contiguity can be put an end
to on the merest inclination, and where not to put an end to it is
intercourse in itself.

Possibly these two might not have spoken again till their parting, had